Date: August 2007
The California Supreme Court has ruled, in Shirk v. Vista Unified School District, that a person is barred from filing a tort claim against a district based on allegations that a teacher had sexually abused a student 25 years ago.
“Plaintiff,” a 15-year-old student at the time of the alleged sexual misconduct, encountered the teacher concerned when her daughter later attended high school. During that time, a licensed mental health practitioner interviewed Plaintiff, then 41 years old, and concluded that she was still suffering psychological injury from her sexual abuse by the teacher 25 years earlier. After the meeting with the mental health practitioner, Plaintiff filed a tort claim against the district and 10 days later filed a lawsuit against the district.
In order to sue a public entity such as a school district, the Tort Claims Act first requires an individual to present a claim to the district within 100 days after the person first became aware of the alleged injury. (After this case, the law was amended to allow for a six-month deadline.) In 2003, the state Legislature extended the one-year statute of limitations for the filing of civil lawsuits in sexual abuse cases to eight years from the time the victim attains the age of majority or three years from the date the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered the psychological injury or illness caused by the alleged abuse. Plaintiff argued that this extension of the statute of limitations should also be extended to the filing of claims against public entities under the Tort Claims Act because she had just discovered the cause of her adult psychological injuries.
However, the state's high court disagreed and held that the government claim deadline under the Tort Claims Act is not governed by any statute of limitations. Thus, because no claim was filed against the district within the 100-day period after the last occurrence of alleged sexual misconduct by the teacher in 1979, Plaintiff’s action against the district was barred by the expiration of time.
In an earlier case this year, the state Supreme Court ruled that school districts may institute dismissal proceedings against teachers even though more than four years have passed since the last incident. The Education Code prohibits a district from introducing charges and evidence that are more than four years old in teacher dismissals. However, the court found that older evidence could be introduced when certain legal equity principles apply. In sexual molestation cases, equitable principles are often applied so that criminal and civil cases can be brought after the statute of limitations has expired, usually based on the fact that the victim did not come forward right away. (Truitt v. Superior Court, Atwater Elementary School District)
Related link:
A copy of the Shirk court decision can be found at: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/s133687.doc